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Clark Quinn’s Learnings about Learning

Context is key

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Workflow learning is one of the new buzzphrases. The notion is that you deliver learning to the point of need, instead of taking people away from the workflow. And I’m a fan. But it’s not as easy as it sounds!  Context is a critical issue in making this work, and that’s non-trivial.

When we create learning experiences, typically we do (or should) create an artificial context for learners to practice in. And this makes sense when the performance has high consequences.  However, if people are in the workflow, there is a context already. Could we leverage that context for learning instead of creating one?  When would this make sense?

I’d suggest that there are two times workflow learning makes sense. For one, if the performers aren’t novices, this becomes an opportunity to provide learning at the point of need to elaborate and extend learning. Say, refining knowledge on sales, marketing, or product when touching one of them.  For another, it would make sense if the consequences aren’t high and the ease of repair is easy. So, sending on a workpiece that will get checked anyways.

Of course, we  could just do performance support, and not worry about the learning, but we can do that  and support learning as well. So, having an additional bit of learning content at the right time, whether alone or in conjunction with performance support, is a ‘good thing’.  The difficulties come when we get down to specifics.

Specifically,  how do we match the right content with the task? There are several ways. For one, it can just be pull. Here the individual asks for some additional help and/or learning. This isn’t completely trivial either, because you have to have a search mechanism that makes it easy for the performer to get the right stuff. This means federated search, vocabulary control, and more. Nothing you shouldn’t already be worrying about for pull learning anyways, but for the record.

Second, you could do push. Here it gets more dicey.  One way is to have content tied to specific instances. This can be hand done as some tools have made possible. That is, you instrument content with help where you find, or think, it could be needed. The other way is to be smart  about  the context.

And this is where it gets complicated. For such workflow learning to work, you really want to leverage the context, so you need to be able to  identify  the context.  How do you know what they’re doing? Then you need to map that context to content. You could use some signal (c.f. xAPI) that tells you when someone touches something. Then you could write rules that map that touch to the associated content. It might even by description, not hardwired, so the system’s flexible. For instance, it might change the content depending on how many times and how recently this person has done this task.  This is all just good learning engineering, but the details matter.

Making workflow learning work is a move towards a more powerful performance ecosystem and workforce, but it requires some backend effort.  Not surprising, but worth being clear on.

Real (e)Learning Heroes

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Super logoWhile there are people who claim to be leaders in elearning (and some are), there is another whole group who flies under the radar. These are the people who labor quietly in the background on initiatives that will benefit all of us. I’m thinking in particular of those who work to advance our standards. And they’re really heroes for what they’ve done and are doing.

The initial learning technology standards came out from the AICC.  They wanted a way to share important learning around flight, an area with a big safety burden.  Thus, they were able to come together despite competition.

Several other initiatives include IEEE (which is pretty much  the US based effort on electric and electronic technology standards to the international stage), and the IMS efforts from academia.  They were both working on content/management interoperability, when the US government put it’s foot down. The Department of Defense’s ADL initiative decided upon  a  version, to move things forward, and thus was born SCORM.

Standards are good. When standards are well-written, they support a basis upon which innovation can flourish.  Despite early hiccups, and still some issues, the ability for content written to the standards to run on any compliant platform, and vice versa, has enabled advancements. Well, except for those who were leveraging proprietary standards.  As a better example, look how the WWW standard on top of the internet standards has enabled things like, well, this blog!

Ok, so it’s not all roses.  There are representatives who, despite good intentions, also have vested interests in things going in particular directions. Their motivations might be their employers, research, or other agendas.  But the process, the mechanisms that allow for decision making, usually end up working. And if not, there’s always the ADL to wield the ‘800 lb gorilla’ argument.

Other initiatives include xAPI, sponsored by ADL to address gaps in SCORM. This standard enables tracking and analytics  beyond the course. It’s no panacea, but it’s a systematic way to accomplish a very useful goal. Ongoing is the ICICLE work on establishing principles for ‘learning engineering’, and IBSTPI  for training, performance, and instruction.  Similarly, societies such as ATD and LPI try to create standards for necessary skills (their lists are appendices in the Revolution book).

And it’s hard work!  Trying to collect, synthesize, analyze, and fill in gaps to create a viable approach requires much effort both intellectual  and social!  These people labor away for long hours, on top of their other commitments in many cases.  And in many cases their organizations support their involvement, for good as well as selfish reasons such as being first to be able to leverage the outputs.

These people are working to our benefit. It’s worth being aware, recognizing, and appreciating the work they do.  I certainly think of them as heroes, and I hope you will do so as well.

New and improved evaluation

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A few years ago, I had a ‘debate’ with Will Thalheimer about the Kirkpatrick model (you can read it here).  In short, he didn’t like it, and I did, for different reasons.  However, the situation has changed, and it’s worth revisiting the issue of evaluation.

where kirkpatrick fitsIn the debate, I was lauding how Kirkpatrick  starts with the biz problem, and works backwards. Will attacked that the model didn’t really evaluate learning. I replied that it’s role wasn’t evaluating the effectiveness of the learning design on the learning outcome, it was assessing the impact of the learning outcome on the organizational outcome.

Fortunately, this discussion is now resolved. Will, to his credit, has released his own model (while unearthing the origins of Kirkpatrick’s work in Katzell’s).  His model is more robust, with 8 levels.  This isn’t overwhelming, as you can ignore some. Fortunately, there’re indicators as to what’s useful and what’s not!

It’s not perfect. Kirkpatrick (or Katzell? :) can relatively easily be used for other interventions (incentives, job aids, … tho’ you might not tell it from the promotional material). It’s not so obvious how to do so with his new model.  However, I reckon it’s  more robust for evaluating learning interventions. (Caveat: I may be biased, as I provided feedback.) And  should he have numbered them in reverse, which Kirkpatrick admitted might’ve been a better idea?

Evaluation is critical.  We do some, but not enough. (Smile sheets, level 1, where we ask learners what they think of the experience, has essentially zero correlation with outcomes.) We need to do a better job of evaluating our impacts (not just our efficiency). This is a more targeted model.  I draw it to your attention.

 

P&D Strategies

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In an article, Jared Spool talks about the strategies he sees UX leaders using.  He lists 3 examples, and talks about how your strategies need to change depending on where you are in relation to the organization.  It made me think about what P&D strategies could and should be.signs

So, one of the ones he cited isn’t unique to UX, of course. That one is ‘continual mentoring’, always having someone shadowing the top person in a role. He suspects that it might slow things down a bit, but the upside is a continual up-skilling.  Back when I led a team, I had everyone have an area of responsibility, but someone backed them up.  Cynically, I called it the ‘bus’ strategy, e.g. in case someone was hit by a bus.  Of course, the real reason was to account for any variability  in the team, to create some collaborative work, to share awareness,  and to increase the team’s understanding..  This is an ‘internal’ strategy.

He cites another, about ‘socializing’ the vision.  In this one, you are collectively creating the five year vision of what learning (his was UX) looks like. The point is to get a shared buy-in to a vision, but also promotes the visibility of the group.  Here again, this is hardly unique to UX, with a small twist ;).  This is more an external strategy.  I suppose there could be two levels of ‘external’, outside P&D but inside the organization, and then an external one (e.g. with customers).

I’d add that ‘work out loud’ (aka Show Your Work) would be another internal strategy (at least to begin with).  Here, the P&D team starts working out loud, with the unit head leading the way. It both gets the P&D team experimenting with the new ways to do things, of course builds shared awareness,  and builds a base to start evangelizing  outside.

I’d love to hear the strategies you’ve used, seen used, or are contemplating, to continue and expand your ability to contribute to the organization.  What’s working?  And, for that matter, what’s not?

No all-singing all-dancing solution

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I was pinged on LinkedIn by someone who used the entrée of hearing me speak in next week’s Learning Solutions conference to begin discussing LMS capabilities. (Hint: they provide one.)  And I thought I’d elaborate on my response, as the discussion prompted some reflections.  In short, what are the arguments for and against having a single platform to deliver an ecosystem solution?

In Revolutionize Learning & Development, I argue for a Performance & Development ccosystem. The idea is more than courses, it’s performance support, social, informal, etc. It’s about having a performer-centric support environment that has tools and information to hand to both help you perform in the moment  and develop you over time. The goal is to support working alone and together to meet both the anticipated, and unanticipated, needs of the organization.

On principle, I tend to view an ‘all singing all dancing’ solution as likely to fail on some part of that. It’s implausible that a system would have all the capabilities needed.  First, there are  many functionalities: access to formal learning, supporting access to known or found resources, sharing, collaborating, and more.  It’s unlikely that all those can be done well in one platform. Let alone, doing them in ways that matches any one organization’s ways of working.

I’m not saying the LMS is a bad tool for what it does. (Note: I am not in the LMS benchmark business; there are other people that do that and it’s a full time job.) However, can an LMS be a full solution? Even if there is some capability in all the areas, what’s the likelihood that it’s best-of-breed in all? Ok, in some small orgs where you can’t have an IT group capable of integrating the necessary tools, you might settle for working around the limitations. That’s understandable. But it’s different than choosing to trust one system. It’s just having the people act as the glue instead of the system.

It’s always about tradeoffs, and so integrating best-of-breed capabilities around what’s already in place would make more sense to me.  For instance, how *could* one system integrate enterprise-wide federated search as a stand-alone platform? It’s about integrating a suite of capabilities to create a performer-centric environment. That’s pretty much beyond a solo platform, intrinsically. Am I missing something?

Return on Wisdom

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In the early days of the internet, I had a chance to read one of the early translations of  The Japan That Can Say No.  The point I took away was the critique of short-term decision making driven by the need for shareholder returns.  I was pondering this the other day, as I wondered how organizations can look to make longer-term investments. And it led me to ponder the question of what the return is on wisdom.

So, the book was a sensation. At the time, the rumor was that it was written by two top Japanese. It wasn’t released in English, but instead was illicitly translated because of the scandalous claims.    Still, I thought the assessment of the problems with derivative financing and efficiency approaches were apt.  Are these approaches wise?

I use the term wisdom because I think we can, and need to, go beyond ‘smart’.  I was pursuing my own quest to transcend what I do, and came upon a nice view of wisdom from Sternberg. This one argues that we should make decisions with both short-  and long-term views, for not just us and ours, but for all people, with an explicit consideration of the value that we are following. Ok, so I’m a native Californian, but I don’t see a problem with this view. Smart is ‘in the moment’, wise is looking at the bigger picture.

I ponder this in the context of organizations continually looking to reduce costs through expediency. As an alternative, they could be looking at longer term approaches that help them get their workforce more intrinsically engaged.  Does outsourcing and layoffs end up being more costly than investing in better leadership and culture?

There are some answers.  Laurie Bassie’s research found that there was a correlation between high scores on handling people and business results.  Similarly, Towards Maturity finds that companies with good L&D practices are more likely to be successful.  It’s not surprising. When you provide meaningful work with enablement to succeed, you’re aligning the elements to succeed. It’s a path to a coherent organization. And, like with light, it’s more powerful.

There are arguments to move in wise directions. It may be hard if you’re driven by the need to produce short-term returns. Still, it’s the wise thing to do.

Warning: Snake Oil

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So this just appeared in my email this morning.  Can you tell what’s wrong?

“The next generation of L&D is here. Millennials are quickly becoming the majority of the world’s workforce. They will need training to become successful leaders. But, because they’ve grown up with mobile devices and digital technologies, they learn differently than previous generations. A solid understanding of millennial learning styles will help you create effective training programs.”

Dr Shmoos snake oil

Yep, snake oil. We’ve hit the myth jackpot!  How many can you spot?  This is the type of stuff marketers come up with that you can’t fight if you don’t know our brains (and more).  So let’s take it apart, shall we?  (This is  so  much fun!)

First, ‘next gen of L&D‘.  Um, maybe.  I don’t see things being done all that differently. It’s more evolution than revolution (despite my exhortations to the latter ;).  Still, no real myth yet.

Next, ‘millennials‘. And, yes, we have a winner!  The evidence says that there’re no meaningful differences between generations.  And if you think about it, it’s much more a continuum than discrete separations. It may be convenient, but it undermines people’s individuality. It’s really a mild form of age discrimination, dealing with people by the year they’re born instead of their unique circumstances. So, we’ve got our first myth. How much would you pay for this?  But wait, there’s more!

Need ‘leadership training’?  Er, yeah, so does pretty much everyone. Some folks may get there naturally, but that’s not the way to bet.  Moving on…

‘Learn differently’ because of growing up digital. This is the ‘digital natives’ story and the ‘digital learning’ story. And both have been debunked.  Turns out that folks who’ve grown up with digital technology aren’t necessarily any better at it. They don’t do better searches, for instance.  They  may be more comfortable, but that’s not what the claim is.  Again, this is sort of discrimination, categorizing people by their environment rather than their individual capability.

And, there’s the story that we’re now learning in fundamentally new ways.  Er, not. Our brains haven’t evolved that fast. We still need sustained and varied retrieval practice and feedback. No ‘knowledge downloads’ yet.  So here we have two, two, two myths in one! (Throwback: who recognizes  the reference?)  Keeping count? We’re up to three.  Now how much would you pay?  But wait, there’s still  more!

‘Learning styles’.  Ow!  The zombie that won’t die; kill it, kill it!  Back to the evidence: there’s no meaningful and reliable instrument to measure styles, so you couldn’t identify them.  And there’s no evidence that adapting to them helps either (which is implicit).  So really, this is  two more myths!  Wow, 5 myths in one paragraph. You’d be hard pressed to do better on purpose!

Manifesto badgeI worry who might fall prey to this marketing campaign.  I hate to tell you this, but there’s no there there.  You’d be far better off putting your effort in improving your learning design than buying into this misguided and misleading effort. If you want help with that, let me know (that’s what I do!), and there are plenty of resources (c.f. the Serious eLearning Manifesto).

Folks, my book on myths is coming out at the end of April. You can be prepared to defend yourself for the cost of just a few coffees. And, you can pre-order it now.  Our industry needs to get onto a proper basis. This is one small step, but one that needs to be taken.

Myths book cover

 

The Dearth of Science in Learning Technology

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Over the years, I’ve looked at a lot of learning technology.  And I see a dispiriting trend. There seems to be little learning science of late.  What I see are marketing driven decisions, even when there are claims to science!  And I think this is a problem.

First, I generally resist the ‘let me show you our product and give us your opinion’. That’s free consulting, and a very rude ask!  (Though I’m contemplating it but all they’ll get for free is the number of comments in each category I’ve noted. ;)  Still  I  will investigate things of my volition at times.  I end up seeing a lot of technology by checking it out when someone talks about it, or wandering expo halls.  And what I see concerns me.

For one, there are too many tools that have suites of features that are oriented towards ‘information dump and knowledge test’.  Which we know isn’t going to lead to meaningful learning.  Yet when I try to push them to the next level of engagement (cognitive and emotional), they’re uninterested.  The response: “this is what our customers say they want”.  Which, of course, isn’t what they need.

It gets worse when supposedly more advanced tools are proselytized. I recently sampled one system promoting their advanced memory model.  And the free-to-air course  on learning science was broken!  It failed on a couple of dimensions beyond drilling rote memory about one thing. That’s not a good example to be showing.  Yet people who don’t know better might be enthused.

For a quick test, check to see if there’s anyone who understands learning on the executive team of a vendor. You’ll see all the business roles filled.  Some might have advisory boards composed of learning folks, but it’s not clear what role they play.

And I get it.  Unfortunately, as an industry, we’re not informed consumers. I see continual conceptually fuzzy promotion of ideas, and even societies offering white papers on the latest buzzwords.  It’s business, and with business folks in charge (and shareholders to assuage), they’ll do what people want.  Yet this isn’t the professionalism we need.

Ok, so this rant doesn’t taint all companies, but it’s too true for many or most. It’s all too easy to look at the typical offerings and point out the fundamental flaws in what they’re doing, if you know how we learn. And you should.

So, I’ll continue on my crusade for us as an industry to lift our game. I hereby offer to assist any learning technology that wants to put it’s money where it’s mouth is to help them understand learning science, build it into their products, and help them promote the benefits. And I likewise offer any organization  using learning technology to help them lift their game and be better consumers.  I’ve done both before, and am ready to assist others. Because our learners need us to represent their true interests.

 

Chief Cognitive Officer?

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Businesses are composed of core functions, and they optimize them to succeed. In areas like finance, operations, and information technology, they prioritize investments, and look for continual improvement. But, with the shift in the competitive landscape, there‘s a gap that’s being missed. And I‘m wondering if a focus on cognitive science needs to be foregrounded.

In the old days, most people were cogs in the machine. They weren‘t counted on to be thinking, but instead a few were thinking for the many. And those who could do so were selected on that basis. But that world is gone.

Increasingly, anything that can be automated should be automated.   The differentiators for organizations are no longer on the execution of the obvious, but instead the new advantage is the ability to outthink the competition. Innovation is the new watchword.   People are becoming the competitive advantage.

However, most organizations aren‘t working in alignment with this new reality. Despite mantras like ‘human capital management’ or ‘talent development’, too many practices are in play that are contrary to what‘s known about getting the best from people. Outdated views like putting information into the head, squelching discussion, and avoiding mistakes are rife. And the solutions we apply are simplistic.

Ok, so neuroscientist John Medina  says our understanding of the brain is ‘childlike‘.   Regardless, we have considerable empirical evidence and conceptual frameworks that give us excellent advice about things like distributed, situated, and social cognition. We know about our mistakes in reasoning, and approaches to avoid making mistakes. Yet we‘re not seeing these in practice!

What I‘m suggesting is a new focus.   A new area of expertise to complement technology, business nous, financial smarts, and more.   That area is cognitive expertise. Here I’m talking about someone with organizational responsibility, and authority, to work on aligning practices and processes with what‘s known about how we think, work, and learn. A colleague suggested that L&D might make more sense in operations than in HR, but this goes further. And, I suggest, is the natural culmination of that thought.

So I‘m calling for a Chief Cognitive Officer. Someone who‘s responsibility ranges from aligning tools (read: UI/UX) with how we work, through designing continual learning experiences, to leveraging collective intelligence to support innovation and informal learning.   Doing these effectively are all linked to an understanding of how our brains operate, and having it distributed isn‘t working.  The other problem is that not having it coordinated means it‘s idiosyncratic at best.

One problem is that there‘s too little of cognitive awareness anywhere in the organization.  Where does it belong?  The people closest are (or should be) the L&D (P&D) people.  If not, what’s their role going to be?  Someone needs to own this.

Digital transformation is needed, but to do so without understanding the other half of the equation is sort of like using AI on top of bad data; you still get bad outcomes.  It’s time to do better. It’s a radical reorg, but is it a necessary change?  Obviously, I think it is. What do you think?

At the edge

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Revolutionize book coverAnother response to my request for topics asked about moving from the classroom to the ‘fringe’.  Here, I have a very simple response: the case studies in Revolutionize Learning & Development. Each was chosen and structured to talk about the context, specific situation, the plan, the results, and advice.  Each also represents a diversity of settings and needs.  These represent some folks working at the edge, away from the ‘event’.

Mark Britz, facing more experts than novices, structured his corporate university as a network, not a series of courses.  Communities of Practice served as a model for this thinking.  This included and Enterprise Social Network and a Knowledge Management system.

Jos Arets and Vivian Heijnin at Tulser talked through a case study working with a medical care organization.  The problem was too much hierarchy. Using a Human Performance Improvement approach, they decentralized the work to more self-directed teams.  The solution includes continuous assessment, mobile performance support, and coaching.

Coaching also played a role in the case study Jane Bozarth provided.  The issue was solving workplace problems. Instead of courses, the solution connected those with demonstrable skills to mentor those who could benefit.  A ‘yellow pages’ to find ‘in the moment’ help was also a part.

For an internal self-help solution, Allison Anderson developed a community of practice with events, portal, and a networking platform. Here, the issues was getting disparate groups performing similar functions (L&D) to share best principles.

I had Charles Jennings recount his actions while serving as CLO in a global organization. With a mantra of ‘from event to process’, he used the 70:20:10 framework to rethink a balance of ‘push’ and ‘pull’ services.

In the book, they tell the stories in their own words. They unpack the thinking behind their choices, ‘showing their work’.  The contributions are very valuable, and I’m very grateful that they agreed to share them.  For that matter, you should find and track these folks!

Each of these were chosen as exemplary of the type of thinking that takes us from the old model to the ‘edge’. We want to be looking holistically at how people think, work, and learn, and aligning our infrastructure (policies, technology, procedures, and culture) accordingly.  This is the L&D part of a larger push to make the workplace more effective by making it more humane (read: more aligned with  us).